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Monday, July 10, 2017

Freezing out teachers

Teachers' pay has been frozen since 2010 and will remain capped at 1%, areal-term pay cut for more than half a million teachers in England and Wales.Kevin Courtney, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers (NUT), explained,"Teachers’ pay increases have fallen behind inflation by 13% since 2010 while this public sector pay policy has been applied. This latest pay announcement will mean that figure increases to over 15%. The pay being offered to newly qualified teachers would be over £3500 higher if the pay cap had never been applied and schools would have far fewer difficulties in recruiting new graduates. The Government’s attack on national pay scales and its pursuit of performance related pay at a time of funding cuts in schools has meant that teachers are increasingly unlikely to get pay progression either. The result is that the Government’s own figures show that average pay for classroom teachers has only gone up by £300 - less than 1% - since 2010."Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), said: “For many teachers, this marks the seventh successive real-terms cut in their pay. We will not be able to attract the best and brightest to teaching if we constantly cut their pay.”